E-commerce system and method

An e-commerce system, comprising:

• a merchandise information distribution unit comprising a merchandise information storage section that stores merchandise information provided from a seller, and a merchandise information server that distributes the merchandise information from said merchandise information storage section to a consumer;
• a plurality of consumer terminals, each comprising a storage section that stores a personal profile in which various keywords contained in the merchandise information and evaluation values corresponding to the keywords are registered, the evaluation values being learned in advance based on a preference of a consumer, and an information filtering section that ranks the merchandise information distributed from said merchandise information server to match the preference of the consumer, based on the personal profile;
• and
• a clearing unit that withdraws a charge of merchandise from an account designated by the consumer to pay to the seller when receiving an order for merchandise from either of said consumer terminals,
• a first consumer terminal of said plurality of consumer terminals being configured to transfer distributed merchandise information to an information filtering section of a second consumer terminal of said plurality of consumer terminals, the information filtering section of the second consumer terminal ranking the transferred distributed merchandise information based on a personal profile stored in a storage section of the second consumer terminal, the first consumer terminal being configured to place an order for merchandise using the merchandise information ranked by the second consumer terminal.